


The Kind of Person I Wanna Be

by DwarvenBeardSpores



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Body Image, Clothing, Dirty Dancing, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Pre-Canon, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 04:38:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11456163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarvenBeardSpores/pseuds/DwarvenBeardSpores
Summary: Stuck on a farm in Indiana, teenage Eliot wants to be somebody else. Somebody better. The only way he can come close to what he wants might be by having a movie night with himself, so he's going to enjoy it while he's got the chance.





	The Kind of Person I Wanna Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Highkingeliot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Highkingeliot/gifts).



> So Highkingeliot and I were sharing headcanons on tumblr, and then this happened, sooo.... this is for you. :)

It was raining. Excellent. 

Eliot’s parents were happy, (which was rare) because this summer had been bordering on a drought, and droughts made everything awful. The cows were happy although, well, Eliot told himself he didn’t really give a shit. (He did. It was nice to hear them happy.) And Eliot? He would settle with content. He was still stuck on this shithole of a farm, and he was still trying to believe he hadn’t killed a boy last year, and he was still… him. Ugh. 

But it was raining, and that was comforting, and Eliot had locked himself in his room. Now, for a few hours, he could just be _him._ Not the him that he had to live with every day, but something like the _him_ that he wanted to be.

Most nights Eliot was given responsibilities in the evening, or he'd be holed up with the homework that- loathsome as it was- might be his one chance to get out of here. His parents would always be at him with some bullshit or another, usually failing of his person. And some nights he didn't have the energy to do anything but stare at the ceiling and feel the weight of everything that was wrong with him. But tonight all the voices that hated him were occupied.Eliot barely even felt guilty as he seized the chance to do something for himself. 

He double-checked the door and placed the bowl of popcorn he’d made himself on the bed. Was there any reason he’d need to leave the room again? No. Definitely not. 

That settled, he scrambled for the box under his bed. In this box were the best things he’s had ever bought for himself. They weren’t good enough, but they were something. On top, folded neatly, was a purple dress shirt. It was so soft, and for a moment he just ran the fabric between his unfortunately calloused fingers. It was soft and clean, and elegant. He stripped off his coarse and stained t-shirt, and pulled the good shirt on. 

Instantly he felt more alive. 

His jeans were shed for the black dress pants that were dry-clean only. Eliot had no idea how he’d actually get them cleaned if he messed them up, but that’s why they stayed in the box. He hadn’t had enough money for a vest. He’d seen some nice ones in the store, he’d wanted desperately to try them on, even if just for a minute. But he was a grubby farm boy in a nice department store, and he hadn’t quite had the nerve. He did own a bowtie, a cheap one that he’d shoved in his pocket and made it out of the store with, and he clipped it onto his collar and straightened it in the mirror as he tried to look suave. 

He was so close. 

When he squinted his eyes, he could almost believe he was looking at a sophisticated man. His clothes were nice. His mess of curls was probably all wrong, but he didn’t know what _all right_ looked like so he gave it a pass for now. He was somehow both fatter than he wanted and taller than he wanted, and even though he’d only bought these clothes six months ago, his arms and legs were already too long to fit them properly. He didn’t have nice shoes so he went barefoot, and he decided to pretend that he was a luxurious millionaire who had no need of nice footwear when he was spending the night alone in his apartment. The rain masked most of the farm noises, and he could pretend it was raining in the city. 

He kept a pack of cigarettes in the box, and now he lit one, trying to hold it elegantly between his awkward fingers, and being very, _very_ careful not to drop any ash on his outfit. His parents would be furious if they caught him smoking, but he felt it was an important part of his image, so he risked it. 

He cracked his window open to blow smoke out into the night. As he watched the delicate cloud disappeared, shot through with raindrops. 

He swallowed. Oh no. He was not going to start crying now. That wasn’t what tonight was for. Tonight was for enjoying himself. He had just one more secret activity to do before he could settle in. 

Eliot stubbed his cigarette out on the windowsill and turned to glare at the TV on his dresser. He welled up thoughts and emotions in his chest, and they came readily because that well wasn’t dry. Then he tried to broadcast them at the television through the simple command _turn on._ He closed his eyes and held his breath and thought _turn on, goddammit_ and waited for the sharp buzz of static that meant the machine was working. 

Nothing. 

Eliot opened his eyes, and the TV still wasn’t doing anything. He let out a long breath. 

Every time that he failed to definitely have psychic powers was… well it was something to take note of. It made it a little more likely that he was totally wrong about manipulating the bus that had slammed into his bully. It made just as likely that he’d once had cool psychic powers, but they were gone after he’d used them to kill someone. He was just as relieved that there wasn’t anything special about him as he was disappointed that there wasn’t anything special about him. 

So he tallied that attempt with the rest of them, and went to turn the TV on manually. 

It was a blessing that he had a television in his room. He’d gotten it from his cousin, who’d given it up when he went away to college (the lucky prick). It was a black boxy thing, with a VHS slot in the front. Into this slot went a copy of Eliot’s favorite movie, which he’d stolen from the downstairs cabinet. He always (almost always) rewound the tape when he was done with it, so after only a few seconds of static and the tail end of the rating guidelines, he heard the familiar drumbeats and that played over the opening credits of _Dirty Dancing._

As the credits rolled over the blurry, slow-motion dancers that Eliot almost considered friends at this point, he got himself comfortable on his bed. He took a few bites of popcorn, which tasted weird against the nicotine twinge still lingering on his tongue. Then his focus moved to arranging his limbs-- which were all too long for him to know what to do with-- in what he hoped was a relaxed, artful position. He couldn’t figure out what to do with his elbows. No matter how he shifted, they were always _there,_ looking frustratingly out of place. 

But he forgot about his elbows after a minute because he could lose himself in this world of dance, where everyone was elegant and sexy and over the top, where two people could clear a dance floor for their own complicated steps, and where, most importantly of all, Patrick Swayze moved with all the confidence and grace that Eliot wished he had. The man danced and taught and spoke, and he was everything Eliot wanted. To be. Everything he wanted to be. 

He was a great actor, who’d been in some great movies, and there was no reason Eliot shouldn’t love him. (Yes there was, but he wasn't thinking about that.) Whenever he spoke, Eliot mouthed the words along with him. He’d seen this movie enough times to have memorized most of them, and now he was working on getting Swayze’s accent down, trying to erase anything that screamed _Indiana farmboy_ from his voice, trying to make himself sound deeper, smoother. 

Eliot _might_ have popped a boner during Hungry Eyes, but that was only because it was a really sexy scene, objectively. He rewound and watched it twice, and let his eyes linger on Swayze’s muscled back and his broad hands. Just for tonight was what he said, but he knew it would be every night. He was aware enough to know who he liked and what he didn't, even if he was too afraid to say it yet. 

He rewound the last dance too. All the way back to the speech, back to “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” Who gave a shit if he was tearing up over their triumph, who gave a shit if he was grinning like a fool as a stuffy reception exploded into a dance party. It was wild and loud and sexy and indulgent and if Eliot wanted to pretend the movie wasn’t over by going back, and back, and back again, there was no one to stop him. 

“So I’m gonna do my kinda dancing, with a great partner,” Eliot said, closing his eyes and feeling the words etching themselves into his being. He saw himself as Swayze, but he also imagined the actor’s firm hand wrapped around his, giving him strength. 

“Who’s not only a terrific dancer, but somebody who taught me that there are people willing to stand up for other people, no matter what it costs them.” He wondered if he’d ever find that person, or if he’d ever be that person. 

“Somebody who’s taught me… about the kinda person I wanna be.” He felt, as he was mimicking this speech, like he was talking to Swayze and Jennifer Grey and everybody in the movie. This was as close as he had to a blueprint, and he was never going to get enough of it. 

Then, as the final song started up for the fourth time in a row, he tossed the empty popcorn bowl aside and stood up. He kicked his dirty clothes to the edges of his room and tried to dance along in the too-small space between his bed and the wall. It was ungraceful and nothing, _nothing_ like the dancing that was happening onscreen, but even as he was aware of this Eliot genuinely did not give a shit. He was going to get there. He was going to have his own damn joyous dance party someday, and it was going to be _fabulous._

He was panting as the scene faded into credits, and he let them play all the way through until the end. Then he picked up the remote and rewound, at the slowest possible speed, back to the beginning of the movie. People danced backwards, revelations were unmade. The high Eliot had been feeling from the end slowly drifted out into the night, where the rain had slowed down leaving the air cool for tonight, and the ground nothing but mud tomorrow. When he got back to the opening credits, he stopped the tape and ejected it. 

And that was that. 

The nice clothes were folded neatly and put back into the box. The tie was unclipped, and Eliot changed into the coarse t-shirt and boxers that he slept in. The popcorn bowl was left near the door for him to deal with the next day, and the box was shoved back under his bed, where it would be safe until the next time he made the space for a movie night. He was right back where he’d started. 

Before he sealed it up he took out one more cigarette and smoked it out the open window. The smoke drifted into the still-cloudy night, barely drifted on no particular breeze. 

He’d have to be up with the dawn tomorrow to help his dad out in the barn and hear about every way he wasn't good enough as his nose filled with the sent of dung, but he lingered one moment more. “So I’m gonna do my kind of dancing,” he said into the night. He didn’t have the energy to finish the speech, but maybe that was enough for now. 

Eliot stubbed out the cigarette and closed the window with a click. His brain still sang to him that somewhere someone was _having the time of our lives,_ but his room was silent as he curled himself back up in his bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'd love to know what you thought. 
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr as @dwarven-beard-spores.


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